Central to Indian history are the people of India who established complex political systems, whether local kingdoms or mighty empires, in which learning and religion flourished. Until the modern industrial era, India was a land famed for its economic as well as cultural wealth. Europeans visited the country to trade for the finest cotton textiles as well as spices. Eventually, the British colonized the region. Their exploitation of India's economic wealth and the subsequent destruction of its indigenous industry provoked and then fueled a nationalist movement, eventually forcing the British to grant India (partitioned into the two states of India and Pakistan) its independence in 1947. Since that time India has developed into a vibrant democracy, making slow but steady progress in development.

The Vedas, which are considered the core of Hinduism, provide much information about the Aryans. The major gods of the Vedic peoples remain in the pantheon of present-day Hindus; the core rituals surrounding birth, marriage, and death retain their Vedic form. The Vedas also contain the seeds of great epic literature and philosophical traditions in India. One example is the Mahabharata, an epic of the battle between two noble families that dates from 300 BC but probably draws on tales composed much earlier. Another example is the Upanishads, philosophical treatises that in their earliest form date from around the 6th century BC.

As the Aryans slowly settled into agriculture and moved southeast through the Gangetic Plain, they relinquished their seminomadic style of living and changed their social and political structures. Instead of a warrior leading a tribe, with a tribal assembly as a check on his power, an Aryan chieftain ruled over territory, with its society divided into hereditary groups. This structure became the beginning of the caste system, which has survived in India until the present day. The four castes that emerged from this era were the Brahmans (priests), the Kshatriyas (warriors and rulers), the Vaisyas (merchants, farmers, and traders), and the Sudras (artisans, laborers, and servants).

As political power shifted east, the area of the upper Indus became a frontier where local kings were confronted by an expanding Persian empire. These invaders had conquered the land up to the Indus River near the end of the 6th century BC. In 326 BC, after fighting the Persians and the tribes to the west of the Indus, Alexander the Great traveled to the Beâs River, just east of what is now Lahore, Pakistan. Fearing the powerful and well-equipped kingdoms that lay farther east, Alexander’s army revolted, forcing him to turn back from India. What was left after his death in Babylon in 323 BC were the Hellinistic states of what is now Afghanistan; these states later had a profound influence on the art of India.

Chandragupta Maurya, the first king of the Mauryan dynasty, succeeded the throne in Magadha in about 321 BC. In 305 BC Chandragupta defeated the ruler of a Hellenistic kingdom on the plains of Punjab and extended what became the Mauryan Empire into Afghanistan and Baluchistan to the southwest. Chandragupta was assisted by Kautilya, his chief minister. The empire stretched from the Ganges delta in the east, south into the Deccan, and west to include Gujarât. It was further extended by Ashoka, the grandson of Chandragupta, to include all of India (including what is now Pakistan and much of what is now Afghanistan) except the far southern tip and the lands to the east of the Brahmaputra River. The Mauryan Empire featured a complex administrative structure, with the emperor as the head of a developed bureaucracy of central and local government.

After a bloody campaign against Kalinga in what is now Orissa state in 261 BC, Ashoka became disillusioned with warfare and eventually embraced Buddhism and nonviolence. Although Buddhism was not made the state religion, and though Ashoka tolerated all religions within his realm, he sent missionaries far and wide to spread the Buddhist message of righteousness and humanitarianism. His son Mahinda and daughter Sanghamitta converted the people of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and other missionaries were sent to Southeast Asia and probably into Central Asia as well. He also sent cultural missions to the west, including Syria, Egypt, and Greece. Ashoka built shrines and monasteries and had rocks and beautifully carved pillars inscribed with Buddhist teachings. (The lion capital of one of these pillars is now the state emblem of India.)

The invasions of northern India came in several waves from Central Asia. Indo-Greeks conquered the northwestern portion of the empire in about 180 BC. Shortly thereafter, Menander, an Indo-Greek king, conquered much of the remainder of northern India. By the 1st century BC, the Shakas of Central Asia had brought numerous tribes in western India under their control. In south and central India, the Andhra dynasty (also known as Satavahana) ruled for almost four centuries. The Maha-Meghavahanas held territories in the southeast, while the Chola and the Pandya dynasties controlled the far south.

The first centuries AD saw the rise and triumph of another major power from Central Asia: the Kushânas. At its height, this empire stretched from Afghanistan to possibly as far as eastern Uttar Pradesh, and included Gujarât and central India. Although it is unclear whether he converted himself, the Kushâna ruler Kanishka (who ruled about 100 AD) is considered one of the great patrons of Buddhism. He is credited with convening the fourth council on Buddhism that marked the development of Mahayana Buddhism.

Between the decline of the Mauryas and the emergence of the Gupta Empire, India was at the center of a global economy, with social and religious links to all of Asia. Trade with the Roman Empire brought an abundance of Roman gold coins to India beginning in the 1st century AD. These coins were melted down and reminted by the Kushânas. Buddhism spread through Central Asia and Southeast Asia toward China. Indian art, particularly sculpture, achieved greatness in this era.

The time of the Gupta Empire has been called the golden age of Indian civilization because of the period’s great flowering of literature, art, and science. In literature, the dramas and poems of Kalidasa, who wrote the romantic drama Sakuntala, are especially well known. The Puranas, a collection of myths and philosophical dialogues, was begun around 400 AD. These remain today the basic source for the tales of the gods who are now central to Hinduism: Vishnu, Shiva, and the goddess Shakti. During this era India's level of science and technology was probably higher than that of Europe. The use of the zero and the decimal system of numerals, later transmitted to Europe by the Arabs, was a major contribution to modern mathematics.

The absence of these centralizing powers left India to be ruled by regional kingdoms. These kingdoms often warred with each other and had fairly short spans of power. They developed a political system that emphasized the tribute of smaller chieftains. Later, starting in the 11th century and especially in the south, they legitimized this rule by establishing great royal temples, supported by grants of land and literally hundreds of Brahmans. Literature and art continued to flourish, particularly in south and central India. The distinctive style of temple architecture and sculpture that developed in the 7th and 8th centuries can be seen in the pyramid-shaped towers and heavily ornamented walls of shrines at Mâmallapuram (sometimes called Mahabalipuram) and Kânchipuram south of Chennai, and in the cave temples carved from solid rock at Ajanta and Ellora in Mahârâshtra. The religious tradition of bhakti (passionate devotion to a Hindu god), which emerged in Tamil Nâdu in the 6th century and spread north over the next nine centuries, was expressed in poetry of great beauty. With the decline of Buddhism in much of peninsular India (it continued in what is now Bangladesh), Hinduism developed new and profound traditions associated with the philosophers Shankara in the early 800s and Ramanuja in about 1100.

The regional kingdoms were not small, but only Harsha, who ruled from 606 to 647, attempted to create an all-India empire. From his kingdom north of Delhi, he shifted his base east to central Uttar Pradesh. After extending his influence as far west as the Punjab region, he tried to move south and was defeated by the Chalukya king Pulakeshin II of Vâtâpi (modern Bâdâmi) in about 641. By then the Pallava dynasty had established a powerful kingdom on the east coast of the southern Indian peninsula at Kânchipuram. During the course of the next half century the Pallavas and the neighboring Chalukyas of the Deccan Plateau struggled for control of key peninsular rivers, each alternately sacking the other's capital. The eventual waning of the Pallavas by the late 8th century allowed the Cholas and the Pandya dynasty to rule virtually undisturbed for the next four centuries.

Elsewhere in India, the 8th century saw continued power struggles among states. Harsha died in 647 BC and his kingdom contracted to the west, creating a power vacuum in the east that was quickly filled by the Pala dynasty. The Palas controlled much of Bihâr and the Bengal region from the 8th through the 12th centuries. Harsha's capital of Kanauj was conquered by the Gurjara-Pratiharas, who were based in central India, and who managed to extend their rule west to the borders of Sind (in what is now Pakistan). The Gurjara-Pratiharas fought with the Rashtrakutas for control of the trade routes of the Ganges. The Rashtrakutas controlled the Deccan Plateau from their capital in Ellora, near modern-day Aurangâbâd. Their frequent military campaigns into north and central India kept the small kingdoms ruled by Muslims in Sind and southern Punjab confined. The Western Chalukyas also fought with, and were finally overthrown by, the Rashtrakutas in the 8th century.

The kingdoms persisted despite this protracted warfare because they were more or less equally matched in resources, administrative and military capacities, and leadership. Although particular dynasties did not last long, these kingdoms, which shifted the center of rule in India to areas south of the Vindhya Range, had a remarkable stability, lasting in one form or other in particular regions for centuries.

The kingdoms of the south, especially the Pallavas and Cholas, had links with Southeast Asia. Temples in the style of the early-8th-century Pallavas were built in Java soon after those in the Pallava kingdom. In pursuit of trade, the Cholas made successful naval expeditions at the end of the 10th century to Ceylon, the region of Bengal, Sumatra, and Malaya. They also established direct trade with China. By the 12th century the cities of the southwestern coast of India, in what is now Kerala and southern Karnâtaka, housed Jewish and Arab traders who drew on a network centered in the Persian Gulf and reaching through Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea and Italy.

The Delhi Sultanate engaged in constant warfare during its 300-year reign, subduing intermittent rebellions of the nobles of the Bengal region, repelling incursions of Mongols to the northwest, and conquering and looting Hindu kingdoms as far south as Madurai in Tamil Nâdu. Beginning with the Slave dynasty, the sultanate was ruled by a succession of five dynasties before it was finally overthrown by the Mughal emperor Humayun in 1556. During the reign of the short-lived Khalji dynasty (1290-1320), the warrior leader Alauddin financed his successful campaigns to south India with an established system of local revenue. The next dynasty, that of the Tughluqs, weakened when Muhammad Tughluq moved his capital from Delhi to the more centrally located Daulatâbâd in an effort to assert more permanent rule over his southern lands. He lost control over the Delhi area, and nobles in the south and in Bengal also established their independence. In 1398 the Mongol conqueror Tamerlane invaded India, sacking Delhi and massacring its inhabitants. Tamerlane withdrew from India shortly after the sack of Delhi, leaving the remnants of the empire to Mahmud, who as last of the Tughluqs ruled from 1399 to 1413. Mahmud was succeeded by the Sayyid dynasty (1414-1451), under which the Delhi Sultanate shrank to virtually nothing. The Lodi dynasty (1451-1526), of Afghan origin, later revived the rule of Delhi over much of north India, although it was unable to give its rule a firm military and financial foundation. The rest of India remained under the rule of other kings, some Muslim and some Hindu. The greatest of these polities was the Hindu empire of Vijayanagar, which existed from 1336 to 1565, centered in what is now Karnâtaka.

Many Indians converted to Islam during this era. One of the areas where a great majority of the population became Muslim was in the Punjab region, which by the end of the Delhi Sultanate had been under the continuous rule of Muslim kings for more than 500 years. Muslims did marry Hindus (the founder of the Khalji dynasty was the offspring of one such marriage), and Hindus did convert to Islam. In general, Muslim kings were far from tolerant, even despising their Hindu subjects, but there is no record of forced mass conversions. The region that is now Bangladesh also became overwhelmingly Muslim during this period. This area had been mainly Buddhist before the Muslims arrived. Even in south India, where the Hindu revival inspired by the works of Shankara and others had its greatest influence, a small minority of people became Muslim.

Humayun's son Akbar, whose name (meaning "great") reflected the ruler he became, extended the Mughal Empire until it covered the subcontinent from Afghanistan to the Bay of Bengal and from the Himalayas to the Godâvari River. The Mughals moved their capitals frequently: wherever they made camp was the capital. The cities they built, and the citadels within those cities, were like army camps, with the nobles living in tents, rich carpets on the ground, and just the walls, audience halls, royal residences, and mosques built of stone. In the course of the dynasty those citadels were located in Lahore, in and around Âgra, in the architecturally spectacular city of Fatehpur Sikri, and near the city of Shahjahanabad ("city of Shah Jahan").

Although illiterate, Akbar matched the learning of his father and grandfather, both of whose courts were enriched by Persian arts and letters, and surpassed them in wisdom. He brought under his control the Hindu Rajput kings who ruled just south and west of Âgra by defeating them in battle, extending religious tolerance, and offering them alliances cemented by marriage (Akbar married two Rajput princesses, including the mother of his son and successor, Jahangir) and positions of power in his army and administration. As an observant Muslim, Akbar brought to his court adherents to various sects of Islam, as well as priests of other faiths, including Christians, to hear them present their beliefs. European visitors to the Mughal court became even more frequent in the succeeding reigns of Jahangir and Shah Jahan. Europeans were allowed to establish trading posts at the periphery of the empire and beyond, but they never became influential at court.

The system came under strain with Shah Jahan’s costly and unsuccessful campaign to capture the Mughal’s ancestral homeland of Samarqand in 1646, and his son Aurangzeb’s equally costly efforts to extend the empire south. In 1686 and 1687 Aurangzeb conquered the Muslim kingdoms of Bijâpur and Golkonda, which controlled the northern half of the Deccan Plateau. But his attempt to subdue the Hindu Maratha Confederacy (centered in what is now Mahârâstra state) was ultimately unsuccessful, and the Mughal armies suffered numerous defeats. Aurangzeb’s growing religious intolerance also undermined the stability of the empire. In 1697 he reimposed a poll tax on non-Muslims, abolished during Akbar’s rule. Disaffection over such discriminatory policies, along with the now-crushing tax burden, led to widespread rebellion at the end of Aurangzeb’s reign.

Although it did not formally end until 1858, the Mughal Empire ceased to exist as an effective state after Aurangzeb died in 1707. The political chaos of the period was marked by a rapid decline of centralized authority, by the creation of many small kingdoms and principalities by Muslim and Hindu adventurers, and by the formation of large independent states by the governors of the imperial provinces. Among the first of the large independent states to emerge was Hyderâbâd, established in 1712. The tottering Mughal regime suffered a disastrous blow in 1739 when the Persian king Nadir Shah led an army into India and plundered Delhi. Among the treasures stolen by invaders were the mammoth Koh-i-noor diamond and the magnificent Peacock Throne, made of solid gold inlaid with precious stones. Nadir Shah withdrew from Delhi, but in 1756 the city was again captured—this time by Ahmad Shah, emir of Afghanistan, who had previously seized Punjab.

For about the first two centuries after Europeans arrived in India, their activities were restricted to trade and evangelism, their presence protected by naval forces. For the entire period of the Mughal Empire, European traders were confined to trading posts along the coast. In the 16th century the Portuguese navy controlled the sea lanes of the Indian Ocean, protecting the traders settled in Goa, Damân, and Diu on the western coast. Christianity swiftly followed trade. Saint Francis Xavier, a Spanish Jesuit missionary, came to Goa in 1542, converting tens of thousands of Indians along the peninsular coast and in southern India and Ceylon before leaving for Southeast Asia in 1545. In fact, the area of India he and other missionaries traversed was already home to communities of Christians, some converted by Saint Thomas in the 1st century AD and some who fled to India many centuries later to escape persecution for their Nestorian beliefs.

The Dutch displaced the Portuguese as masters of the seas around India in the 17th century. The Dutch East India Company was founded in 1602, two years after its main rival, the English East India Company. Both companies began by trading in spices, gradually shifting to textiles, particularly India’s characteristic light, patterned cottons. Their activities in India were centered primarily on the southern and eastern coasts and in the Bengal region. The economic effect of purchases made at the coastal depots were felt far inland in the cotton-growing areas, but the Europeans did not at that time attempt to extend their political sway.

By the 18th century British sea power matched that of the Dutch, and the European rivalry in India began to take on a military dimension. During the first half of the 18th century the French, who had begun to operate in India in about 1675, emerged as a serious threat to the growing power and prosperity of the English East India Company. By the mid-18th century the British and French were at war with each other throughout the world. This rivalry manifested itself in India in a series of conflicts, called the Carnatic Wars, which stretched over 20 years and established the British as the primary European power in India.

As the French and British skirmished over control of India’s foreign trade, the Mughal Empire was experiencing its rapid decline and regional kingdoms were emerging. The continuously warring rulers of these kingdoms used well-trained and disciplined French and British forces to support their military activities. The foreigners, however, had their own agenda, frequently expanding their own political or territorial power under the guise of championing a local ruler. Led by innovative and effective Joseph François Dupleix, the French managed by 1750 to place themselves in a powerful position in southern India, especially in Hyderâbâd. In 1751, however, British troops under Robert Clive captured the French southeastern stronghold of Arcot in a pivotal battle. With this encounter the balance of power in the south swung to favor the British, although the struggle for control of India’s trade continued.

In Bengal, the English East India Company had begun fortifying Calcutta’s Fort William to defend against possible attacks by the French. Nominally a part of the Mughal Empire, Bengal was at this time virtually independent under the emperor’s nawab (governor). In response to reports of unauthorized activities of the British, the nawab Siraj-ud-Dawhah attacked Calcutta in 1756. Some British survivors of the attack were imprisoned in a small dungeon known as the Black Hole of Calcutta where a number of them died. After the incident, Robert Clive, then the British governor of Fort Saint David, moved north from Madras and, conniving with the commander of his enemy's army, defeated the nawab in the Battle of Plassey in 1757. The battle marked the first stage in the British conquest of India. The French attempted to regain their position in India but were beaten back by the British in 1761. In 1764 the British again defeated local rulers at the Battle of Buxar. This victory firmly established British control over the Bengal region.

The British made even more significant gains by military means. In the late 1700s they were drawn into a three-way conflict when the nizam of Hyderâbâd asked for British assistance against his rivals: the Marathas, and Tipu Sahib, the sultan of Mysore. In 1799 the British marched on Seringapatam, Tipu’s capital, and defeated his troops. Tipu was killed defending the city. The British annexed much of Mysore outright; they controlled the remainder through a new sultan they installed. After a series of battles (1775-1782, 1803-1805, 1817-1818) with the Marathas, the British also succeeded in bringing Maratha lands under their control.

In 1773 the British Parliament passed the Regulating Act, the first of a series of acts that gave British governors greater control over the English East India Company. Under the Regulating Act the company was still permitted to continue handling all trading matters and to have its own troops, but its activity was now supervised by parliament. The act also established the post of governor-general of India and made the holder of the office directly responsible to the British government. Warren Hastings became the first governor-general of India in 1774.

At the same time British attitudes about Indian culture changed. Until about 1800 the East India Company traders adapted themselves to the country, donning Indian dress, learning Sanskrit, and sometimes taking Indian mistresses. As British rule strengthened, and as an influential evangelical Christian movement emerged in the early 19th century, India's customs were judged more harshly. Missionaries, who had been kept out by the company for fear they would upset Indians and thus disrupt commerce, were now brought in. Laws were passed to abolish Indian customs such as suttee (the immolation of a widow on her husband's funeral pyre). The 18th-century company officers, such as Sir William Jones, a scholar of Sanskrit who discovered the relationship of Indo-European languages, were replaced by British subjects who felt Indian thought and literature was of virtually no value. In 1835 English was enforced as the language of government.

Under the leadership of Governor-General James Andrew Broun Ramsay, 10th Earl of Dalhousie, the empire continued to expand. After two wars with the Sikhs, the Sikh state of Punjab was added in 1849. Governor-General Dalhousie also annexed Sâtâra, Jaipur, Sambalpur, Jhânsi, and Nâgpur on the death of their native rulers, taking advantage of a British doctrine that declared Britain’s right to govern any Indian state where there was no natural heir to the throne. The absorption of Oudh, long under Britain’s indirect control, was the last major piece added to the company’s possessions; it was annexed in 1856. Dalhousie’s tenure was also marked by various improvements and reforms: the construction of railroads, bridges, roads, and irrigation systems; the establishment of telegraph and postal services, and restrictions on slave trading and other ancient practices. These innovations and reforms, however, aroused little enthusiasm among Indian people, many of whom regarded the modernization of their country with both fear and mistrust.

The Sepoy Rebellion, with its unanticipated fury and extent, left the British feeling insecure. In August 1858 the British Parliament abolished the English East India Company and transferred the company’s responsibilities to the British crown. This launched a period of direct rule in India, ending the fiction of company rule as an agent of the Mughal emperor (who was tried for treason and exiled to Burma). In November 1858, in her proclamation to the "Princes, Chiefs, and Peoples of India," Queen Victoria pledged to preserve the rule of Indian princes in return for loyalty to the crown. More than 560 such enclaves, taking in one-fourth of India’s area and one-fifth of its people, were preserved until Indian independence in 1947. In 1876, at the urging of British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli, Queen Victoria took the title of Empress of India.

Among the reforms introduced after the adoption of direct rule was a reorganization of the administrative system. A secretary of state, aided by a council, began to control Indian affairs from London. A viceroy (a governor who acts in the name of the British crown), implemented London’s policies from Calcutta. An executive and a legislative council provided advice and assistance. Provincial governors made up the next level of authority, and below them were district officials.

The army was also reorganized after the imposition of direct rule. The ratio of British to Indian soldiers was reduced, and recruitment policies were reshaped to favor Sikhs and other "martial races" who had been loyal during the Sepoy Rebellion. Castes and groups that had been disloyal were carefully screened out.

With the imposition of direct rule, the economy of India became even more closely linked than before with that of Britain. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 reduced the sailing time between Britain and India from about three months to only three weeks, enabling London to exercise tight control over all aspects of Indian trade. Railroads, roads, and communications were developed to bring raw materials, especially cotton, to ports for shipment to England, and manufactured goods from England for sale in an expanding Indian market. Development schemes, such as massive irrigation projects in the Punjab, were also intended to serve the purpose of enriching England. Indian entrepreneurs were not encouraged to develop their own industries.

Although some industrialization took place during this period, its benefits did not reach the majority of the Indian population. During the 1850s, mechanized jute industries were developed in Bengal and cotton textiles in western India, mainly by British firms. Although these industries expanded rapidly from 1880 to 1914 and though an Indian iron-and-steel industry was developed in the early 20th century, India remained essentially an agrarian economy. By 1914 industry accounted for less than 5 percent of national income, and less than 1 percent of India’s workforce was employed in factories. A succession of severe famines occurred at this time despite the general improvement of agricultural production, the expansion of the railways, and the development of administrative procedures designed to tackle such crises. With only small advances in public health, death rates remained high and life expectancy low.

The assumption of direct British rule in 1858 made Indians British subjects and promised in principle that Indians could participate in their own governance. Few reforms addressed this issue, however. Although local government councils had been elected even before 1857, it wasn’t until the Indian Councils Act of 1861 that Indians were permitted, by appointment, to participate in the Executive Council, the highest council of the land. Indian representation on local and provincial bodies gradually expanded under British rule, though never to the point of complete control. The higher civil service had theoretically been opened to Indians in 1833, and the Queen’s Proclamation of 1858 confirmed this point again. Nevertheless, candidates for the service had to go to England to compete in the examination, which emphasized classical European subjects. Those few who managed to overcome these initial obstacles and join the service encountered discrimination that prevented them from advancing.

Dissatisfaction with British rule took organized political form in 1885, when these men, with the support of sympathetic Englishmen, formed the Indian National Congress. Resolutions at the first session called for increased Indian participation on provincial legislative councils and improved access for Indians to employment in the Indian Civil Service. Initially the organization adopted a moderate approach to reform. For its first 20 years, the Congress served as a forum for debate on questions of British policy toward India, as well as a platform to push for economic and social changes. Central to a newly developed Indian identity was the argument, articulated by three-time Congress president Dadabhai Naoroji, that Great Britain was draining India of its wealth by means of unfair trade regulations. The Congress also took issue with the restraint on the development of native Indian industry and the use of Indian taxes to pay the high salaries and pensions of the British who ruled over India by "right" of conquest.

At the same time, a Hindu social reform movement that had begun 50 years earlier contributed ideas about the injustice of caste and gender discrimination. Reformers lobbied for laws to permit, for example, the remarriage of Hindu women widowed before puberty. In western India, one reformer, journalist Bal Gangadhar Tilak, impatient with the slow pace of the nationalist movement, attempted to mobilize a larger audience by drawing on Hindu religious symbolism and Maratha history to spark patriotic fervor. A similar thread of nationalism appeared in Bengal. By 1905 extreme nationalists had arisen to challenge the more moderate members of Congress, whose petitioning of the British government had had little success.

George Nathaniel Curzon, who was viceroy from 1899 to 1905, presided over British Empire in India at its peak, and he worked to weaken nationalist opposition to British rule. He decided to partition the administratively unwieldy province of Bengal into East Bengal and Assam, each with a Muslim majority, and West Bengal, Bihâr, and Orissa, each with a Hindu majority. This measure sparked a set of developments in the nationalist movement that were to transform India's future. The Hindu elite of Bengal, many of whom were landlords collecting rent from Muslim peasants of East Bengal, were roused to protest not just in the press and at public meetings, but with direct action. Some pushed a boycott and Swadeshi (literally "own-country," but meaning here "buy Indian") campaign against British goods, especially textiles. Others joined small terrorist groups that succeeded in assassinating some British officials. This movement echoed in other parts of India as well. By 1908 imports had fallen off significantly, and sales of local goods enjoyed a five-year boom that gave real impetus to the development of native industries.

The emergence of extremism, led particularly by Tilak, resulted in a split in the Congress in 1907. The election of a new Liberal government in Britain in 1906 and the subsequent appointment of a new Liberal secretary of state, John Morley, gave new heart to the moderates. Many extremists were imprisoned by the British for lengthy terms.

Finally, the partition of Bengal, the vehement agitation against it, and the prospect of liberal reform crystallized the opposition of the Muslim elite to the trend of Indian nationalism. They worried about the role of a Muslim minority in a fully democratic, independent India. In October 1906 a delegation of about 35 Muslim leaders called upon Lord Minto, the viceroy, to ask for separate electorates for Muslims and a weighted proportion of legislative representation that would reflect their historic role as rulers and their record of cooperating with the British. (These requests were later adopted in the reforms incorporated in the Government of India Act of 1909.) In December, this delegation, joined by additional delegates from every province of India and Burma, formed the All-India Muslim League (later the Muslim League). Although the Muslim League did not then generate a mass following, its leaders played an important role in the politics that accompanied the challenge to British rule and the partition of India in 1947.

Ultimately the opposition to the partition of Bengal was successful when the region was reunified in 1911, although without the regions of Bihâr and Orissa. At the same time the British announced the shifting of the capital of India from Calcutta (where it had been formally since 1858) to Delhi and the building of a new, adjoining city: New Delhi. Although the city of New Delhi would be built on a grand imperial scale, the losses from World War I (1914-1918) dealt what was to become a mortal blow to the British Empire.

Shortly after the war began, Indian lawyer Mohandas Gandhi returned to India from South Africa, where he had organized and led an Indian ambulance corps when the war broke out. When he came to India in 1915 he was already an important political leader because of an earlier trip to India in 1901-1902 and because of his efforts for civil liberties in South Africa. He met with the viceroy and the leaders of the Congress, and in 1916 he forged a pact with Muhammad Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League, for Congress-Muslim League joint action. Gandhi also became involved in a number of campaigns of nonviolent resistance, in which he honed the nonviolent techniques he had developed in South Africa.

In 1917 Edwin Montague, the secretary of state for India, had announced a policy of the "gradual development of self-governing institutions with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire." As the war ended the British introduced a fresh set of reforms, culminating in the Government of India Act of 1919. This act brought some Indian control over certain executive departments in the provinces and greater representation of Indians in the central legislative council. Also, the act made it easier for Indians to gain admission into the civil service and into the officer corps of the army, an aspect of the law which encountered resistance from some British.

In the same year that it passed these reforms, however, the legislative council also passed the Rowlatt Acts. The Rowlatt Acts, which detractors called the Black Acts, made permanent some restrictions on civil liberties that had been imposed during the war. Specifically, the acts gave the government emergency powers to deal with so-called revolutionary activities. There was an immediate wave of disapproval from all Indian leaders, and Gandhi stepped in and organized a series of nonviolent acts of resistance (or Satyagraha, as Gandhi called them; literally "truth and firmness"). These included nationwide work stoppages (hartal) and other activities in which Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs participated together. One of these protests coincided with a Hindu festival in Amritsar. Despite a last-minute ban on public meetings, thousands of unarmed pilgrims and protesters gathered in a public square to celebrate on April 13, 1919. Without warning, British troops opened fire on the peaceful crowd, killing nearly 400 people. The success of the Rowlatt Satyagraha followed by the Amritsar incident brought public sympathy to the nationalist movement, and with it a new level of prestige.

Gandhi then led another even more massive movement of civil disobedience. It climaxed with the "salt satyagraha" in 1930, in which volunteers broke the law by making salt from the ocean in order to protest a salt tax. Tens of thousands were sent to jail as a result. The British government gave in, and Gandhi went to London as the sole representative of the Congress to negotiate new steps of reform.

In 1935, after these negotiations, the British Parliament approved legislation known as the Government of India Act of 1935. The legislation provided for the establishment of autonomous legislative bodies in the provinces of British India, the creation of a federal form of central government incorporating the provinces and princely states, and the protection of Muslim minorities. The act also provided for a bicameral national legislature and an executive arm under control of the British government. The federation was never realized, but provincial legislative autonomy went into effect April 1, 1937, after nationwide elections. In these elections, the Congress saw victory in much of India, except in areas where Muslims were a majority. Congress governments, with significant powers, took office in a number of provinces.

When World War II broke out in 1939 the British declared war on India’s behalf without consulting Indian leaders, and the Congress provincial ministries resigned in protest. After extended negotiations with the British, who were searching for a way to grant independence some time after the war's end, Gandhi declared a "Quit India" movement in 1942, urging the British to withdraw from India or face nationwide civil disobedience. Along with other Congress leaders, he was imprisoned in August that year, and the country erupted in violent demonstrations. Gandhi was not released until 1944.

The Muslim League supported Britain in the war effort but had become convinced that if the Congress Party were to inherit British rule, Muslims would be unfairly treated. Jinnah campaigned vigorously against Congress during the war and increased the Muslim League’s support base. In 1940 the League passed what came to be known as the Pakistan Resolution, which demanded separate states in the Muslim-majority areas of India (in the northwest, centered on Punjab, and in the east, centered on Bengal) at independence. Many Muslims supported the Muslim League in its demand, while Hindus (and some Muslims) supported the Congress, which opposed partition of British India. Another round of negotiations over Indian independence began after the war in 1946, but the Congress and the Muslim League were unable to settle their differences over partition. Jinnah proclaimed August 16, 1946, Direct Action Day for the purpose of winning a separate Muslim state. Savage Hindu-Muslim riots broke out in Calcutta the next day and quickly spread throughout India. In September, an interim government was installed. Jawaharlal Nehru, the leader of Congress, became India’s first prime minister. A united India, however, no longer seemed possible. The new Labor government in Britain decided that the time to end British rule of India had come, and in early 1947 Britain announced its intention of transferring power no later than June 1948.

Before independence, Mountbatten had made clear to the Indian princes that they would have to choose to join either India or Pakistan at partition. In all but three cases, the princes, most of them ruling over very small territories, were able to work out an agreement with one country or another, generally a deal that preserved some measure of their status and a great deal of their revenue. The issue of Kashmîr, Hyderâbâd, and the small and fragmented state of Jûnâgadh (in present-day Gujarât), remained unsettled at independence, however. The Muslim ruler of Hindu-majority Jûnâgadh agreed to join to Pakistan, but a movement by his people, followed by Indian military action and a plebiscite (people’s vote of self-determination), brought the state into India. The nizam of Hyderâbâd, also a Muslim ruler of a Hindu-majority populace, tried to maneuver to gain independence for his very large and populous state, which was, however, surrounded by India. After more than a year of fruitless negotiations, India sent its army in a police action in September 1948, and Hyderâbâd became part of India.

Hari Singh, the Hindu maharaja of Kashmîr, a large state with a majority Muslim population and adjacent to both India and Pakistan, kept postponing the decision of whether to join India or Pakistan, hoping to explore the possibilities of independence. After tribal warriors supported by Pakistan invaded and threatened his capital in October 1947, Hari Singh finally agreed to join India in exchange for military support from the Indian army. The Kashmîr situation, however, was complicated by a nearly 20-year-old movement against the maharaja—a movement that was likely supported by a large majority of Muslims of the Kashmîr valley. Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, the leader of the movement against the maharaja, also explored the possibility of independence, but his friendship with Nehru prevented him from pursuing this idea. Sheikh Abdullah and Nehru made an arrangement whereby Abdullah became Kashmîr’s first prime minister in 1948, and the new state was granted far more autonomy than any other princely state that had joined India.

The problems with Kashmîr, however, were only beginning. As fighting continued between Indian and Pakistani forces, India asked the United Nations (UN) for help. A cease-fire was arranged in 1949, with the cease-fire line creating a de facto partition of the region. The central and eastern areas of the state came under Indian administration as Jammu and Kashmîr state, while the northwestern quarter came under Pakistani control as Azad Kashmîr and the Northern Areas. Although a UN peacekeeping force was sent in to enforce the cease-fire, the dispute was not resolved (see Jammu and Kashmîr).

France and Portugal still held territories on the Indian coast after India gained independence. The French territories, the largest of which was Pondicherry, had an area of about 500 sq km (about 200 sq mi); they were ceded to India in 1956. Portugal's main Indian possession was Goa, a territory on the western coast of India. Goa had an area of about 3,400 sq km (about 1,300 sq mi) and a population of about 600,000 in 1959. Portugal refused to cede its territories to India, and in December 1961 the Indian army occupied them. Portugal eventually accepted India's rule in the early 1970s. Goa became a state of India in 1987; Pondicherry became a union territory in 1962.

Under Nehru's leadership, the government attempted to develop India quickly by embarking on agrarian reform and rapid industrialization. A successful land reform was introduced that abolished giant landholdings, but efforts to redistribute land by placing limits on landownership failed. Attempts to introduce large-scale cooperative farming were frustrated by landowning rural elites, who—as staunch Congress Party supporters—had considerable political weight. Agricultural production expanded until the early 1960s, as additional land was brought under cultivation and some irrigation projects began to have an effect. The establishment of agricultural universities, modeled after land-grant colleges in the United States, also helped. These universities worked with high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice, initially developed in Mexico and the Philippines, that in the 1960s began the Green Revolution, an effort to diversify and increase crop production. At the same time a series of failed monsoons brought India to the brink of famine, prevented only by food grain aid from the United States.

The planning commission of the central government inaugurated a series of five-year plans in 1952 that emphasized the building of basic industries such as steel, heavy machine tools, and heavy electrical machinery (such as power plant turbines) rather than automobiles and other consumer goods. New investment in those industries, as well as investment in infrastructure, especially railroads, communications, and power generation, was reserved for the public sector. Most other economic activity was in private hands, but entrepreneurs were subject to a complex set of licenses, regulations, and controls. These were designed to ensure a fair allotment of scarce resources and protect workers' rights, but in practice they hampered investment and management. The central government controlled foreign trade stringently. Substantial progress was made toward the goal of industrial self-reliance and growth in manufacturing during the 1950s and early 1960s.

India’s large diversity of languages contributed to internal political problems during the 1950s and early 1960s. Although Gandhi had reorganized the Congress movement in 1920 to reflect linguistic divisions, and though the nationalist movement had always promised a reorganization of provincial boundaries once independence was achieved, Nehru resisted a demand to bring together the Telugu-speaking areas of the former British province of Madras and Hyderâbâd state. He yielded only when the leader of the movement fasted to death, and severe riots broke out. A States Reorganization Commission was appointed, and in 1956 the interior boundaries of India were redrawn along linguistic lines. In 1960 much of the land making up Bombay state was divided into Mahârâshtra and Gujarât states, with the remainder going to Karnâtaka state. In 1966 most of Punjab was split into the states of Punjab and Haryâna after significant public protest. Aside from some minor border disputes, and with additional states formed mainly in northeast India, the reorganization generally strengthened India's unity.

The thorny problem of a national language for the country remained. The constitution specified that Hindi, spoken in many dialects by 40 percent of Indians, would become the official language in 1965, after a transition in which English, spoken by the educated elite of the country, would serve. Non-Hindi speakers, especially in the south Indian state of Madras (later renamed Tamil Nâdu), mobilized against central government efforts to impose Hindi. To settle the dispute, the government allowed continued use of English for states that wished to keep it.

During its first years as a republic India figured increasingly in international affairs, especially in deliberations and activities of the UN. Nehru became world famous as the leading spokesman for nonalignment, the idea that other countries should refuse to take sides in a mounting ideological and political struggle between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the United States known as the Cold War. Indian determination to avoid entanglement with either of these powers became increasingly apparent after the outbreak of the Korean War (1950-1953). Although the Indian government approved the UN Security Council resolution invoking military sanctions against North Korea, no Indian troops were committed to the cause, and Nehru dispatched notes on the situation to the United States and the Soviet Union, repeatedly trying to restore peace in Korea. In its initial attempts at mediation the Indian government suggested that admitting China to the UN was a prerequisite to a solution of the Korean crisis. Even after China intervened in the Korean War—and despite India’s differences with China over Tibet, which China had invaded in 1950—India adhered to this view. However, it was rejected by a majority of the UN Security Council.

Nehru was unable to resolve the hostility with Pakistan, rooted in the Indian nationalists' opposition to the creation of Pakistan and in the terrible bloodshed that accompanied the partition of the two countries at independence. The division of Kashmîr along the 1949 cease-fire line left each country claiming important territory held by the other. Diplomatic efforts at the UN and at bilateral meetings between Nehru and Liaquat Ali Khan, the prime minister of Pakistan, proved unsuccessful. Although India had agreed to hold a plebiscite in the region, it claimed that the plebiscite was dependent on the withdrawal of Pakistani forces from Kashmîr, and that the vote of the Kashmîr legislature in 1956 to integrate fully into India made a plebiscite unnecessary. Pakistan claimed that a mutual withdrawal of forces was necessary, and that one party to an agreement cannot unilaterally change it.

In the late 1950s India began to conflict with China over the ownership of some largely uninhabited land along India’s northeastern border in Arunâchal Pradesh and in the hill areas of northeastern Jammu and Kashmîr. Until that time India’s relations with China had been generally amiable, and Nehru believed that the territorial dispute could be solved through friendly negotiations. The difficulty of mapping the area accurately, and the conflicts between the security interests of the two countries, however, proved to be thornier problems than Nehru had anticipated. By 1959 the dispute had begun heating up, and popular pressure not to yield territory to China grew. Nehru's government sent military patrols into the disputed territory.

China's answer was to attack in both disputed areas in October 1962, quickly routing an ill-prepared Indian army, and threatening to move virtually unopposed to the plains of Assam. In desperation, India sought Western and military aid, especially from the United States, which the administration of President John F. Kennedy willingly provided. The fighting ended when China unilaterally announced a cease-fire in late November, continuing to occupy some of the territories it had invaded. The crisis precipitated a drastic overhaul of Indian defenses, including massive arms procurement and the modernization of its armed forces. Also, Defense Minister V. K. Krishna Menon, a powerful neutralist, was ousted from the government at the end of October. This in turn alarmed Pakistan, concerned that its small size and small economic capacity compared with India would condemn it to a permanent position of inferiority on the subcontinent.

Nehru died in May 1964. He was succeeded by Lal Bahadur Shastri, who was seen both at home and abroad as a weak successor. Unrest in Kashmîr combined with Pakistan's belief in India's weakness, resulted in a short war between the two countries in September 1965. The Soviet Union brokered a cease-fire, and literally hours after it was signed in January 1966, Shastri died in Toshkent, Uzbekistan.

In this atmosphere of political instability and economic crisis, Indira Gandhi took the bold initiative of nationalizing the country's largest banks and abolishing payments of personal allowances to the Indian princes, which had been part of the agreement that had brought them peacefully into the Indian union. In the 1971 elections, campaigning on a platform of abolishing poverty, Gandhi led the Congress Party to a decisive victory.

In December 1970 the Awami League, an East Pakistani party advocating a federation under which East Pakistan would be virtually independent, won a majority of votes in Pakistan’s first legislative elections since independence. Civil war broke out in the country after Pakistan’s military leader refused to allow the legislature to convene. Millions of refugees, mainly Hindus, were forced into India. India supported the East Pakistani freedom fighters with sanctuary, training, and arms, and when Pakistan bombed Indian airfields on December 3, 1971, India invaded Pakistan to liberate East Pakistan. The Pakistani troops were quickly defeated, and East Pakistan gained recognition as the independent nation of Bangladesh ("Land of the Bengalis"). Pakistan's humiliating defeat, despite the efforts of the United States on its behalf, restored India's pride that had been so badly hurt by its defeat by China.

The success also of the Green Revolution, an effort to diversify and increase crop yields, brought India to a position of self-sufficiency in food grain production, and made the sweeping victory of Gandhi's Congress in the 1972 state elections almost inevitable. Gandhi attempted to build on this political advantage by reorganizing the party so that its state leaders would owe their primary loyalty to her and the national party, and to push forward further radical measures in the economic sphere, nationalizing the wholesale trade in wheat in 1973. A worldwide oil crisis in 1973, coupled with a series of poor harvests, brought about severe inflation. Gandhi began to lose support after several unpopular moves, such as rescinding on the nationalization of wholesale wheat trade and the testing of the country’s first atomic device in 1974.

By the spring of 1975 harsh economic measures had brought the economy back under control. At the same time, however, Gandhi was convicted of corrupt practices in the election of 1971. Although she maintained her innocence, opposition to Gandhi grew, bringing together elite politicians anxious for power with a grassroots opposition movement that had been building in the previous year. Gandhi's response to this mounting pressure was to declare a state of national emergency in June 1975. Opposition politicians were jailed, the press was censored, and strong disciplinary measures were taken against a bureaucracy that had grown slack and corrupt. Initially the country did well under the so-called Emergency Rule: Hindu-Muslim riots, which had been increasing in the late 1960s and early 1970s, virtually ceased, prices stabilized, and government seemed to work with honesty and vigor.

As stringent measures and corruption in the government continued, however, the Indian public grew resentful, and open opposition to Congress leaders and the bureaucracy surfaced. In the fall of 1976 Gandhi pushed though amendments to the constitution that would have entrenched many of the emergency provisions. At the same time her younger son, Sanjay, was associated with a coercive family planning campaign and similar measures, and government leaders enjoyed a lack of accountability to the public.

In June 1984 Gandhi ordered the army to fight its way into the main shrine of the Sikh religion, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, where Sikh terrorists had established their headquarters. About 1,000 people, including the main terrorist leaders, died in the battle. All the buildings of the complex, with the exception of the central shrine, were badly damaged. Sikhs everywhere were outraged at the desecration. On October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by Sikh members of her security guard.

Despite this internal turmoil, the 1984 elections, secured by the young, fresh leader Rajiv Gandhi, promised both continuity and change and brought an enthusiastic turnout; the Congress (I) party scored its most impressive victory ever. Gandhi quickly moved to negotiate peace accords in Assam and Punjab and accelerated the economic liberalization begun by his mother. His political inexperience, however, quickly surfaced. His uncertainty on how to handle a Supreme Court decision that antagonized orthodox Muslims cost him Muslim support and at the same time encouraged renewed stirrings of Hindu nationalism. The Punjab accord unraveled when the moderate leader with whom he had negotiated it was assassinated. Also, Gandhi sent Indian troops in 1987 to Sri Lanka to help suppress a rebellion by Tamil guerrillas. A peace agreement was signed in July, but violent clashes continued, and Indian troops were left embroiled in that guerrilla war.

Although economic growth accelerated to record levels, it was fueled by large-scale external borrowing; the government was also spending a great deal on modernizing its armed forces. A military exercise to test new weapons and new tactics brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war in 1987, and a kickback scandal involving the purchase of artillery from a Swedish firm weakened Gandhi’s government.

In May 1991 Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a Sri Lankan Tamil terrorist during a campaign rally. The assassination disrupted the May elections, and a second round of voting was scheduled for June. P. V. Narasimha Rao, who had once served as Gandhi’s foreign minister, was chosen to replace Gandhi as head of the Congress (I). Rao led the party to a near majority in the second round of voting, and took office as India’s new prime minister.

India's economy responded in the next five years with growth in the gross domestic product, a rapid expansion of trade, and new vigor in the private sector, visible in new products from automobiles to breakfast cereals. Other parts of the reform package were only partially implemented. Subsidies to farmers were cut barely at all, privatization of public-sector enterprises was attempted with great caution, and little was done to change laws that made labor management difficult. The states began to compete vigorously for private investment, including foreign investment, and also took some small steps to privatize their own public-sector enterprises.

Militant Hindu nationalism had apparently peaked, however. In March 1993 bomb blasts in Mumbai severely damaged the Bombay Stock Exchange and killed several hundred people, but the bombing did not spark riots, even though it was widely assumed that Muslim extremists were responsible. The BJP, whose governments in several north Indian states had been dismissed by the central government in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition, faced united opposition in the elections of November 1993 and fared poorly. Although the party recovered enough to become the largest party in the national parliament after the 1996 elections, it did so after a campaign in which it did not emphasize Hindu nationalist demands.

In Kashmîr, radical Muslim factions continued to agitate for secession into the mid-1990s, despite the election of a new government led by Farooq Abdullah, son of Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah. Violent separatist movements persisted in Assam and Punjab as well.

The 1996 elections ushered in a period of unrest in India and concern on the part of foreign investors. The Congress (I) lost its majority, forcing Rao to resign as prime minister. The central political issue had become the corruption of the most senior politicians. Amid allegations of corruption, Rao retained his parliamentary seat but resigned as party president. He was indicted for corruption in 1997, as were a number of his former cabinet colleagues. Members of other political parties—with the exception of the Communist parties—were also implicated in bribery and kickback scandals. With the continued investigative vigor of the press and a newly energized judicial system, the revulsion of most Indians against corruption became evident.

The BJP won the most seats in parliament in the 1996 elections but failed to win a majority. Still, with the invitation of the president, the BJP formed a government under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. After 13 days in parliament, Vajpayee resigned when it became clear that he would not pass a confidence vote by the parliament. The leftist coalition United Front, which had the second highest number of parliamentary seats, formed a government under Prime Minister H. D. Deve Gowda with the help of the Congress (I) Party and several smaller regional parties. Gowda’s government, however, had only been in power for nine months when the Congress (I) withdrew its support, demanding Gowda’s resignation. In order to avoid new elections, Gowda resigned and Inder Kumar Gujral, also of the United Front coalition, assumed the position of prime minister with support from Congress (I). Still, the Indian government remained shaky. In the fall of 1997, Gujral resigned when the Congress (I) once again pulled its support of the coalition, this time over differences relating to the investigation of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination.

In the March 1998 elections that followed, the BJP and its regional party allies won a majority of seats in parliament with 35 percent of the vote. A coalition government took office, led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee of the BJP as prime minister. In May the new government made India into a "nuclear weapons state" by testing five nuclear devices. Pakistan responded with its own nuclear tests, arousing fears of a regional nuclear arms race. A number of foreign governments declared sanctions against both countries to express disapproval of the tests.